Easier for you, if I stay on this site!
First, Thank You!
Thank you to all 600 visitors from 26 states, 15 foreign countries from June, 2010 through today, February 14, 2012.
Thank you for your contributions, suggestions and mostly for your readership! It has been my privilege to be able to give something back of the beauty and grace that surrounds us every day, and to those people who read and comment that something on a particular day strummed a chord of delight, peace or enjoyment to them.
Since it has been a blog about God and flowers, I thought it fitting to transition to the new site with the same. I have the new site still under construction and there is a learning curve again, but in a short time, I trust to not only have it operational but to transition it to a new look.
I want to spend today with more scenes from the Kula Botanical Gardens from Maui, Hawaii. Originally, the gardens started as 13 private acres purchased, designed and developed by Helen and Warren McCord in 1969. When you see the expanse of it at elevation 3300 feet and what has been accomplished throughout the following 44 years, it is simply magnificent! Nine acres are now planted in Monterrey Pines, one acre in coffee trees.
I had very limited time so I could not visit all the sections, but you will see what was able to find and today, that is the orchid section. Not some hothouse variety but simply and lushly growing under a shady pergola. I was not able to catalogue them so, you'll just have to enjoy looking at them.
Often times, simple is best. Sometimes, all we can do is look at a picture and that aids in healing. The picture itself is enough.
Like gardening, when a seed is planted, it gets the right nutrients along with time, ideas can bloom and proliferate. I have had a seed kernel of an idea laying in the soil of my mind and have finally taken steps to see it grow and mature. I have taken my idea of blooms and scripture to a printer and together, we are working on format, design and cost.
The real scenario is while I felt the seed was there in the dirt just lying there so I could ignore it (fear), the seed was doing what seeds do. Given time and the conditions God put into motion, the seed was actually soaking up the nutrients and now has a little sprig of growth on it and the very tip top is poking up through the soil of my mind.
Here I am on this path of change that is somewhat like being on the end of the high diving board in life but as the expression goes, No guts, no glory. Sometimes, we plan and contemplate but if there is no action, there for sure won't be any result. Nobody can get the blessing of what is in my head unless I jump off the board and continue forward.
While it is true in life that some people achieve or accomplish things in their life at an early age, it is also true, Biblically and in our lives today, that people accomplish great things in their maturity. It is all about God working to will and to do of His good pleasure in your life. It is also our decision what we want to do with our opportunities.
I hear people say all the time God is in control. Well, this is not really true, is it? He gave us free will and we make our own decisions. If that were not so, then we all would be Christians and God would have all of the world as His family as is His desire, and we would not be picking out what kind of cheese we want on our sandwich.
He would like all of us to be made whole and come unto the knowledge of the truth (I timothy 2:4), but whether that happens is up to us; either now or later as the opportunity is presented.
Therefore, let us be open to change, to growth, to encouragement and yes, even correction, because they all help us into our maturity in our daily lives. Your path and contributions are going to be different than mine but we all can contribute our own to the whole and when we each do that, then we mature into the functioning body that God would have us and delight in us, to do (I Peter 4:10 & 11).
Enjoy these wonderful orchids from the Kula Botanical Gardens and I will see you on the new site!
